Welcome to class!

The goal of Mindfulness Meditation and Education (MME) is to provide a thorough and varied introduction to meditation that includes an explicit critique of education.

The first four weeks of the semester feature instruction, discussion, and skills-practice in the Koru Mindfulness framework. Tuesdays are primarily devoted to instruction and discussion, and Thursdays are primarily be devoted to skills-practice. This phase of the course includes the close-reading of a required text, The Mindful Twenty-Something by Holly Rogers.

The following three or four weeks of the semester feature instruction, discussion, and practice in 'bodyfulness' meditation rooted in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction or MBSR. Tuesdays feature instructor-delivered dharma talk presentations, and discussion. Thursdays feature skills-practice. This phase of the course includes the use of free samples of Jon Kabat-Zinn's book Full Catastrophe Living, with additional content carried in the dharma talks.

The remainder of the semester features student-generated and delivered dharma talks and discussion on Tuesdays, in tandem with practice-intensive work on Thursdays. In this phase of the course, content is contained within the dharma talks, with no additional assigned readings.

Throughout all of the above phases, the focus of the MME course remains on the individual person. The value of the course is that it provides an opportunity for each person to fully explore whether or not meditation, and/or contemplative practices more generally, have anything to offer them. Each person plots and executes their own path or course through the course, building their own contextual and skills-based understanding of meditation and contemplative practice more generally.

Welcome aboard!